Queen’s Speech

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I intend to focus my remarks on an important subject that transcends the policy areas covered by today’s debate: disability equality. Some noble Lords may have heard that I have a new status since last we met: I have been abolished. For noble Lords who missed the piece in last weekend’s Sunday Times, I am referring to the fact that having applied in response to an advert specifically for the position of disability commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I was told by its chair, 36 hours before my first board meeting, that the board had decided to abolish the role. In his words, the role was “redundant”. I was then pressured by the chair to accept that the disability commissioner was no more and that I would therefore not chair the commission’s important Disability Advisory Committee. In other words, as the Sunday Times put it, my role as champion of the nation’s 11 million disabled people had been abolished.

I reject what I regard as a retrograde and deeply regrettable decision. Perhaps I can share with the House why I am so concerned. The excellent report produced recently by the ad hoc Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability states that there had been,

“a loss of focus on disability discrimination”,

and furthermore that,

“combining disability with the other protected characteristics in one Act”—

the Equality Act—

“did not in practice benefit disabled people”.

Nowhere in the report is there the slightest suggestion that one way to reassure disabled people would be to reduce the focus further, which is exactly what the abolition of the disability commissioner post does.

I am also concerned about the commission’s interpretation of equality. As noble Lords may recall, I argued in the last Session that disability equality before birth is fundamental, because unless a disabled human being’s equal right to exist is respected, all other rights are academic. One needs to be born to exercise them. Otherwise, the situation whereby after birth I am somehow good enough to be in your Lordships’ House, but before birth I am only good enough for the incinerator because of my disability, means that discrimination on the grounds of disability is perpetuated.

I have been told by the commission’s chair in effect to shut up on the issue of disability equality before birth. His exact, rather sinister, words were, “I appreciate this approach”—the commission’s approach—“would be a departure from your previous engagement in this field”. What is the commission’s approach? He states that the commission would have to agree its position on disability equality before birth based on an analysis of all relevant rights affected and consider whether and how to act on the issue through a prioritisation process based on strategic objectives.

Since when was equality, and especially a disabled human being’s equal right to exist, based on a prioritisation process and weighed against the rights of other groups? Does this apply to other protected characteristics covered by the Equality Act? Is it okay to deny their equal right to life specifically because of their protected characteristic? I think not. This is inequality. This is disability discrimination perpetuated by the very equality body that I, and every other human diagnosed before birth with a disability, should be able to rely on to defend our intrinsic equality. Yet I have sadly discovered that I cannot do so.

Within the last few hours, the commission chair has rushed out a letter to stakeholders highlighting the commission’s work on equality, presumably in anticipation of my speaking in this debate. That sadly confirms to me that the commission is missing the point: that the volume of activity is no substitute for a nominated disability champion in the form of a disability commissioner. It does nothing to lessen my fear that some non-disabled people see themselves as passionate advocates of equality but equality on non-disabled people’s terms. That has to change, and as disability commissioner I would have ensured that it does change.

Perhaps the most chilling aspect of all this is that no one was meant to know about the situation in which I find myself, because I was meant to acquiesce. Indeed, at one point I was asked not to mention it to other disabled people for fear that it would leak. I am not requesting that the Government get involved. This is a struggle for equality between the commission and me as a disabled person. However, in conclusion, I thank all noble Lords who have encouraged me to stand my ground and to refuse to accept that this is a done deal, and who have asked how they can help. I ask noble Lords to make their support for my position known, because the fact remains that we need a strong disability commissioner, and a genuine Equality and Human Rights Commission, now more than ever.